


There's No Place Like A Former Weapon X Facility For The Holidays

by Duck_Life



Category: All New X-Men (Comics), X-Men (Comicverse)
Genre: Christmas, Fluff, Gen, Hanukkah, Holidays
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-16
Updated: 2014-12-16
Packaged: 2018-03-01 20:00:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2785859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Duck_Life/pseuds/Duck_Life
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The base of the New Xavier School's now filled with cheer as several time-displaced X-men prepare for the holidays. Snow angels are made, presents are opened, and awkward conversations are had.</p>
            </blockquote>





	There's No Place Like A Former Weapon X Facility For The Holidays

“There’s only enough for one more bowl,” says Magneto, former mutant terrorist and supervillain extraordinaire, current resident at the New Xavier School and Frosted Flakes enthusiast, as he looks down into the cereal box in his hand. “Would you like the last bowl?”

Kitty can only stare. After several months here, it probably shouldn’t feel so bizarre to be offered breakfast by a guy who once tried to electrocute her. “I- I think I’m good,” she says. “Thanks, though.” It is, nevertheless, _bizarre_.

Erik pours himself a bowl of cereal and drops the box in the garbage before grabbing a carton of milk out of the fridge and adding a judicious amount. It’s early, and quiet. Soon enough the only sounds are those of Magneto chewing.

When Kitty pushes herself away from the counter to go back to her room and change out of her pajamas, he glances up. “Happy Hanukkah.”

Oh. Right. She should probably say it back, she thinks, that would be the normal, friendly, teammate thing to do. That was what you would do if you hadn’t grown up training to fight someone in super-powered battle, you would say it back. “…Okay.”

She walks through a chair in her haste to get out of there.

With all the snow and painfully awkward familial tension, the place feels pretty much like the holidays all year round. As Kitty heads down the hall, she can see Bobby’s been doing his part to make the ex-X facility more festive, adorning all the doorways with icicles.

Unfortunately, he’s been doing nothing to maintain them, and Kitty nearly slips on one of the many puddles accumulating below the decorations.

Well. At least the kids are getting in the spirit.

They spend the day training; Kitty focuses on trying to get them to learn how to fight and fight well without the benefit of their powers.

“This is dumb,” Warren argues after the third time she yells at him for flying away from Bobby’s admittedly pitiful attempt to put him in a headlock. “I don’t need to know how to _not_ have wings because I’m always going to _have_ them.” He grumbles while Kitty tries to decide whether she wants to get into a long lecture about M-Day and Leech and mutant cures and whatever the hell else they might come up with that she needs to prepare her students for.

“Besides,” Hank chimes in, “Laura gets to use her powers.”

“No claws!” says Laura, holding up her hands as if to prove it.

“Healing factor.”

“Fighting _you_ , I do not need to use it.”

Kitty intercedes, partially due to Hank’s tendency to put his overly large foot in his mouth and Laura’s tendency to… well, to be Laura, partially due to the fact that the arguing is beginning to give her a headache. “Alright, alright, kiddos of the atom, cut it out.” Warren, annoyed, is still fluttering about five feet above the ground, Bobby looks like a very irritated ice sculpture, Laura’s scowling, Hank’s muttering something under his breath, and Jean looks like she’s trying to figure out if she can use her powers anyway without Kitty noticing. “Okay, we’re gonna try this again. Everybody switch partners. Flyboy, you’re with me.”

She works them harder than usual, only because she’s planning to cut them some slack later on for the holidays. At the end of the day, they’re all too exhausted to bicker with each other. The true sign of a good training session, she decides.

That night, she finds them crowded around the TV watching _Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer_. Laura’s upset that Rudolph helped the other reindeer out in the end instead of just letting them get lost in the storm and Hank’s trying to turn the whole thing into a conversation about mutants and how those with useful powers have a greater chance of being accepted by society. Bobby sings along to the songs. Jean’s conked out, twitching a little every time Warren’s feathers accidentally tickle her face.

Everyone gets a little more spirited as December progresses. Hank and Jean finagle a sizeable pine tree into the base and begin to decorate it. Erik finds a hunk of metal that probably used to belong to some torture device in the depths of Weapon X and turns it into a menorah. Some of the students manage to convince Emma and Illyana to build snowmen with them, with Bobby all-too-willing to help. Warren makes some really spectacular snow angels. Kitty introduces Jean to peppermint mochas.

Business goes on as usual, of course, as it always will. Anti-mutant sentiments don’t take a winter break, and neither do space dinosaurs, parasitic Sentinels, Mystique, a band of mutant thieves who turn out to be human kids with a fog machine and fireworks, a reincarnated Charles Xavier who turns out to be Mystique again, Warren getting his wings caught in a revolving door and almost ending up on the news, and all the other haggles they deal with this holiday season.

Erik ends up giving the menorah to Kitty when Hanukkah’s over, telling her, “For next year.”

For all Kitty knows, they could all be dead by next year. Or possessed. Or possessed _and_ dead. “Thanks,” she says, scratching off a bit of melted candle wax.

Kitty plans to sleep in Christmas morning, having given her X-men the day off, but the kids wake her up scrambling to the tree. God knows why, it isn’t like any of them still believe in Santa Claus.

She thinks. She’s reasonably sure. You never can tell with Bobby.

More likely, she thinks, heating up some cocoa, they just want Jean to open up her gifts before she hears them thinking about what they got her.

It’s a surprisingly large haul for what’s more or less a militaristic operation. There are some for and from the other students, some her X-men set down for each other, and some that arrived surprisingly in a package from the Jean Grey School which she guesses are mostly from Henry. Emma, Scott, and Illyana each have exactly one present under the tree, and Kitty knows because they’re all from her- nice watches for Emma and Scott, and for Illyana, a collection of movies whose VHS tapes she can remember wearing out with the other girl back in the day.

“I’m opening the first present,” Bobby decides, sinking to the floor in front of the Christmas tree and searching through the pile of wrapped boxes and gift bags. “This’d better not be socks,” he says, holding up a thin rectangle that definitely isn’t socks. “It’s from Warren.” He tears off the paper to reveal the _Frozen_ soundtrack. “Oh, come on, man,” he says. At the same time, Warren starts gleefully singing “Do You Want to Build a Snowman” and Bobby lunges at him. “ _I will stick you on top of the tree_.”

“Let it _go_ , dude.”

“Oh, stop it,” Jean laughs, shoving Bobby off of her lap even as he tries struggling past her to get to Warren. “I’m opening one now.”

Reaching into the pile of presents, she carefully selects a small rectangular package wrapped in candy cane colored paper. Upon unwrapping it, she holds out a gorgeous wooden music box. Using her powers to wind it, she opens it up to reveal a miniature dancer slowly turning as the music plays.

For a moment, Jean’s speechless. And then- “Oh… oh my gosh, I had one of these when I was a kid, it broke… I used to love it.” She stares, mesmerized, at the spinning dancer. “I never told anyone, though.”

“Who’s it from?” asks Bobby, prompting Laura to lean over and check out the peeled-off wrapping paper.

“The tag just says Santa,” she says, annoyed. “Santa is not real. He did not get you this, Jean.”

“I know,” she says, but she’s not really paying attention. She seems still in awe of the music box.

While the kids move on to arguing over who gets to open the next present, Kitty glances over at Scott Summers- the older, Earthbound one- looking very out of place in the corner of the room and very preoccupied suddenly with his cup of coffee.

The visor makes it hard to tell, but she’s almost certain he catches her looking at him and winks.

As it turns out, the kids act more like six-year-olds than sixteen-year-olds when it comes to unwrapping presents, and, Kitty thinks, why shouldn’t they? Forced to grow up too soon, trapped in the wrong time- maybe they deserve a little juvenility. Soon enough all the gifts have been opened- and, in Laura’s case, the paper ripped into shreds by adamantium claws. Hank starts stuffing all the wrapping paper into a large trash bag and Scott and the others disperse, leaving Kitty alone with the team.

“Think I might go back to bed,” says Kitty, still tired from being woken up earlier than expected.

“Hang on,” Jean says, reaching behind the tree. “There’s one more present.” She pulls out a large rectangle wrapped in blue and white paper with little dreidels on it.

“Happy late Hanukkah,” Warren says while Jean hands her the present, and they stand around her eagerly waiting for her to open it. Whatever it is, it’s heavy.

“You guys didn’t have to get me anything,” she says, lifting a corner of the paper and beginning to pull it off.

“I wrapped it,” Bobby tells her proudly.

Kitty rips the rest of the paper off and realizes that what she’s holding is a plaque. Flipping it around, she reads the inscription.

_The Pryde Program for Misplaced Mutants_

“We thought you could put it up somewhere,” Hank says, sounding for the first time like he can’t find the right words. “And… thank you for holding us together. And for doing everything you do. And Happy Hanukkah.”

Kitty runs a thumb over the cool surface of the plaque and tries to keep from welling up, but she’s pretty sure the kids can see her holding back tears. “Thank you,” she says finally, looking up at the five faces looking up at her. “Thank you for this, I’m… thank you.” They nod, a little humbled. “I just wish S-”

She’s interrupted by a knock on the door, and Bobby jerks up to get it. The door opens, there’s a cold gust of winter air- “Hey, guys. Sorry I’m late, I-”

“ _Scott_ ,” Jean shrieks, running full-tilt at the boy standing outside and almost knocking him over in a hug.

“Hey,” he grins, hugging her back. “Merry Christmas. We were near enough Earth, Dad thought I might need a break…” Scott trails off, glancing around at his friends, snowflakes sticking out of his hair. “S’great to see you guys. And you, Professor K. Happy, uh, Happy late Hanukkah.”

Kitty grins, the plaque still in her hand. “Merry Christmas, Scott.” 


End file.
